The Gospel Sermon Series

In the book of Acts, we’re told the Apostle Paul preached at Troas, and he preached so long that a man went to sleep and fell out of the window. When the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth - their sermons lasted so long that the congregation apparently placed a large hourglass on the pulpit to remind the preachers how long they were preaching. And, even then, most sermons lasted from 2 to 3 hours. But the longest sermon on record was preached on February of 1955 by a man named Clinton Lacy. His sermon lasted 48 hours and 18 minutes. (E. Eugene Williams)

After hearing about the length of this sermon, someone quipped that he thought there ought to be another beatitude added to Scripture: “Blessed is the preacher whose TRAIN of thought… has a CABOOSE.”

In the early church at Jerusalem, it was job of the Apostles to preach about Jesus. And there’s a strong possibility that the Gospels we have in our New Testament were the results of a some of those sermons. The fact that each of the Apostles would not only have preached their sermons (but would have listened to the sermons of the others) probably explains why the first 3 Gospels have so much in common. If so, they were probably really loooong sermons. But in the culture of that day, long sermons probably were not all that uncommon. You get the right preacher preaching the right message… and I’ve seen preachers hold an audience’s attention for 3 hours or more, and people wondered where the time went.

Now each of the 4 Gospels had an audience they focused on.

MATTHEW was probably the 1st of the 4 Gospels (see footnote #1) – and targeted a Jewish crowd. Matthew started out telling about Jesus’ genealogy and then spent a lot of time with Old Testament prophecies declaring that Jesus was the promised Messiah. Those 2 topics would have intrigued a Jewish audience.

Most scholars believe LUKE was focused on a Greek audience (Luke was a Greek convert) and he spent time talking to eye-witnesses of Jesus’ ministry. He may have talked to Mary, Lazarus, several of the Apostles and many of the 500 witnesses of Jesus resurrection. And his writings focused heavily on Jesus’ teachings and that would have appealed to the Greek mindset.

JOHN is thought to have tailored his sermon/Gospel for the world at large. In fact, to this day, many evangelists will advise their students to read John because its message is so universal. John was a close friend of Jesus - he saw and heard things that others had not. He told stories about Jesus’ life that the other Gospels didn’t have.

My point is - each of the Gospels seems to have had a target audience in mind. And that brings me to the Gospel of Mark. Who did Mark compose HIS sermon for? There’s strong reason to believe he wrote it for a Roman audience. (footnote #2) In his very 1st sentence Mark stated that he was going to focus on Gospel of Jesus

Mark 1:1 says “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

From that point on, Mark set off on a non-stop, action–packed description of things that Jesus did, and it bounces from one event to the next with words like ““immediately”, “at once”, “without delay”, and “quickly.” Mark wrote a short, fast-paced gospel where he didn’t seem to be so much concerned with what Jesus taught (although he did tell about Jesus’ teachings) but he seemed to focus more on what Jesus DID. And that apparently appealed to the Roman mindset.

So now, we’re going to take a look at that 1st verse and examine it because - in that one statement - Mark tells us WHY he wrote his Gospel the way he did.

(PAUSE) Matthew and Luke started THEIR Gospels – telling of Jesus’ birth, with all the angels, and shepherds, and wisemen, and such. But Mark skips all that and begins with Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. And he did that, because (as Luke 3:23 tells us): After His baptism “Jesus… began his ministry.” So, Mark starts his Gospel declaring that he’s going to tell us about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry - the beginning of the stuff He did in his life (which included Jesus’ death/burial/ and resurrection).

The 1st verse says – “The GOSPEL Of Jesus Christ, The Son Of God.” That word “GOSPEL” simply means “GOOD NEWS.” Remember that Mark’s primary audience was the Romans, and he started out his Gospel to the Romans declaring that JESUS WAS THE SON OF GOD. Mark was saying - Jesus wasn’t just a good teacher; and He wasn’t just a moral man - Jesus was GOD in the flesh. Now… why tell the Romans THAT? Why tell them that Jesus was God in the flesh? Well, because Rome had gotten into the habit of thinking of their leaders as GODS! I did some research and found that 5 of Rome’s greatest Emperors had temples built to honor them after they died Julius Caesar (49 to 49 B.C.); Augustus (27 B.C.); Claudius – (41 to 54 A.D.); Vespasian – (69 to 79 A.D.); and Titus – (79 to 81 A.D.) (https://ancientromelive.org/becoming-a-god-the-deification-of-the-roman-emperor/#:~:text=Read%20More,that%20was%20down%20to%20Vespasian). Their temples still exist to this day, and Mark wrote his Gospel right in the middle of the time period of those Roman ‘gods.’